Ain't It the Way
by MissAnnThropic
Summary: No two soldiers had ever adhered so faithfully to the regulations, toeing the line because they both believed some day they would have their time.


Title: Ain't It the Way  
Author: MissAnnThropic  
Summary: No two soldiers had ever adhered so faithfully to the regulations, toeing the line because they both believed some day they would have their time.  
Disclaimer: I own nothing to do with Stargate but my rabid fan behavior. Alas.

* * *

Janet Fraiser had been in so many hospitals they should feel like a second home to her, and most of the time there was a comfortable familiarity to the sterile halls. However, that home-away-from-home had the tendency to harbor a beast, a dark monster that could swell to fill the place from wall to wall, making even the most welcome feel terrified.

Janet Fraiser felt that black creature now as she moved through the halls of the Minneapolis Memorial Hospital. She had taken a red-eye to Minnesota after receiving word, unable to rest even had she tried until she saw Sam. There had been a second of consideration if not Daniel or Teal'c should go to her, but in the end Janet was chosen. She was better equipped to handle this, to explain it to a woman who would need answers that neither Teal'c nor Daniel could provide.

Janet trolled the halls, looking for Sam. She had not been in the front lobby or the waiting room of the ICU, so Janet just started sweeping the hospital floor by floor, search pattern methodical.

She found Samantha Carter on the fourth floor, in an alcove that served as a waiting area for those who simply could not pull themselves away to the great distance of the main waiting room. Janet slowed when she caught sight of Sam. One would not know she was an Air Force major to look at her; she was sitting on an old couch with her legs tucked underneath her body like a child, dressed in blue jeans, tennis shoes, and a gray and green flannel too large for her body. It had to be the colonel's.

Janet had to bite the inside of her lip. She couldn't let herself think about the colonel right now, it would break her. She had to focus on Sam, the one she could do something to help, the reason she'd flown nonstop from Colorado Springs.

Janet moved closer to Sam as one approached a wounded wild animal, waiting for Sam to notice her, unsure of Sam's state of mind.

Sam merely stared, unblinking, at the far wall, hands deathly still in her lap, complexion pale and stony.

"Sam," Janet said her name very softly when she was alongside the motionless woman.

"Hey, Janet," she whispered flatly, still miles away.

Janet risked reaching out a hand to Sam's shoulder. She felt the taut tension of the blonde soldier's muscles. "How are you?"

Sam grunted, an admirable if unconscious facsimile of Colonel O'Neill. Janet's fingers involuntarily closed tighter around Sam's shoulder. Damn, and she'd come here to lend support to Sam, not the other way around.

Sam's flat, detached voice intoned, "I was there when it happened."

Janet lowered herself to the couch space beside Sam, as she did so moving her hand from the woman's shoulder to her forearm, obsessed with the necessity to keep physical contact with her, touch her so Janet knew Sam wasn't flying apart. If she'd had enough hands Janet would have been holding each member of SG-1 from both sides, making sure they didn't crumble.

Blinking once, Sam's eyes continued to stare at the opposite wall. Janet suspected Sam had been sitting here since they were brought in, tucked in this same position on this dusty couch the entire time Janet was en route to Minnesota for too-late damage control.

"Did they tell you?" Sam asked without looking at Janet.

The doctor nodded. "I talked to one of the attendings on my way here. Myocardial infarction. Just big doctor words; it was a heart attack."

Sam was silent for a long time, Janet not sure how to ask for more. Sam seemed to be held tenuously together by will alone; Janet feared distracting Sam from holding her defenses lest her good friend shatter.

"He'd been trying to get me to come up to his cabin for years," Sam was suddenly speaking lowly. "Every time we had time off he asked, and I always said I had other things to do. This was the first time I agreed to go."

Janet rubbed her fingers against Sam's clammy, cool skin through the material of the flannel. "I know; he was so excited you were going with him, everyone on the base could see that."

Sam's emotionless mask slipped just enough for her to almost frown. Momentary anger flickered in her blue eyes. "He was too young, Janet."

Janet frowned carefully. "He wasn't that young, Sam. He was fifty-three years old, and he had a high-risk, stressful job."

"He was too young," Sam repeated darkly, something in her voice daring Janet to contradict her.

Janet nodded. "Yes, he was too young." She studied Sam a moment, wary, then prodded gently, "Tell me what happened."

Sam inhaled slowly before she began, "It was after dinner. He seemed fine, he even seemed happy. God, Janet, you've never seen the sunny side of Jack O'Neill until you've seen him here. It's just a cold, mosquito-infested pit to most people, me included, but it wasn't that to him. He does his job so well that you'd never suspect it, but _this_ is where he belongs, you can see it when he's at his cabin, hiking in the woods, fishing in that stupid lake... and all this time I never knew...

"He'd been a little off since that morning, said his left shoulder felt a little achy and he seemed kinda winded, but he assured me it was nothing and he didn't seem to be hurting. I thought maybe he just slept on it wrong. He even made me forget to worry about him by the way he lit up once we went outside for the day.

"We finished dinner and were sitting in front of the fireplace when he went to put the dishes in the kitchen. I... I heard the plate break when he dropped it, then I heard him hit the ground. I ran into the kitchen and... he was lying on the floor, curled up on his side holding his chest. His face... God, he was in so much pain... he was _so_ scared."

Janet was getting more details, more imagery, than she wanted, but she wasn't about to stop Sam. There were pressure values that needed to vent or they'd blow completely, so Janet sat listening and grimacing as she suffered through a catharsis hard for both parties.

"I called 911 but by the time they got there..." Sam 's eyes swam, gaze still resolutely locked on the opposite wall.

Janet whispered, "There was nothing you could have done, Sam. He had a very acute attack. Even if the paramedics had arrived sooner they might not have saved him; even if they had it wouldn't have been without some permanent damage. Worst case scenario, he could have suffered cognitive impairments, physical handicaps, speech problems.."

Sam said crisply, indicating she was speaking for him rather than herself, "Rather he went like this than live like that. It's the last thing he would have wanted."

Janet's lips pinched; as one devoted to preserving life she could not comment.

Sam took a deep breath, and when she exhaled something seemed to leave her, the body that was left behind bereft and resigned.

"Sam... I'm so sorry," Janet said gently. Janet's inclination was to pull Sam into a hug, comfort her, but Sam came off too distant and erect for frail human contact; her body language did not invite physical contact.

Sam was quiet a long time, giving no indication she wanted to move, then almost blurted, "He kissed me, Janet."

Janet's eyes flew up to Sam's face, her chest tightening. 'Oh no,' Janet's mind raced, 'tell me I heard wrong, don't do that to her.'

Sam, still not once looking at Janet, absently pulled back one of the sleeves of the oversized flannel shirt to pick at a brown string tied around her wrist. Janet recognized it; Colonel O'Neill had worn it on and off as long as she'd known him. She'd never asked him about it because he didn't seem inclined to provide an explanation but it was one of the first things he always checked when Janet returned his possessions to him after an extended infirmary stay. He'd always given her a small, warm smile for realizing the errant string had value to him and packing it with his things rather than throw it out.

Sam tucked the sleeve protectively back over the string on her wrist. "We'll never get our chance."

Janet had held herself in firm control to that point, but with that one sad statement she felt like crying for her friends. No two soldiers had ever adhered so faithfully to the regulations, toeing the line because they both believed some day they would have their time. Time now stolen, lost beyond all hope.

Sam finally turned her head so that her eyes could settle on Janet. There was fortified determination in her face, guarded strength. "How are Daniel and Teal'c?"

Janet let fall whatever tears may. Jack O'Neill was gone. Sam was accepting the only bequeathment she felt entitled to, the one thing Colonel O'Neill might pass on solely to Samantha Carter... Jack's steadfast devotion to the well-being of his team, their safety placed with unwavering trust in her hands. It would be Sam's priority now, because Jack had left the need for someone to take care of Daniel Jackson and Teal'c the way he always had whether they needed it or not.

And as it had been with Jack O'Neill, Janet could see in Sam's face that she had also inherited the colonel's need to be needed by his teammates. Sam had to feel she was needed, that the protection she would offer was wanted.

"Daniel's a mess," Janet finally answered, "he's been going back and forth between crying when he thinks no one's watching and breaking things. He's shattered half the artifacts in his office and no one has the courage to try and stop him.

"He needs you, Sam."

Something stirred in Sam's eyes, something Janet would have known all too well if that same look had come from brown eyes. Sam had a job to do, people to protect, friends that depended on her. It would come before all else.

Only one visit to the northern state and Sam had become more like Colonel O'Neill than she had in years of service with him, carrying on in his image whether she knew it or not, a loyal second in command even after death. That fact said so much about Jack as a leader... just as much as it said about Sam.

Janet would take Sam back to Colorado where she could carry Daniel through the anger and sadness of losing his best friend, console the warrior in Teal'c that lost a comrade who'd been like a brother, and for it all Jack would have been proud of Sam.

END


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